Thanks to all who lended support. 7 months from ordering (to the day!), I took delivery of an Alpina Blue B6 in northern California. It's longer than I remembered - it HAS been 7 months - but beautiful. I have pics, but can't upload directly to this site ...

The all-season tires - an issue for me - ended up being Conti ExtremeContact DWS, which aren't "M&S" tires, but are well reviewed and likely will get me past CalTrans at a Tahoe checkpoint. (There aren't many, and they won't care.)

It is a BIG car, length and weight (almost 5,000 lbs!), but I'm falling in love. Smile My wife has an M4 for the times that is called for. I have a few road trips coming up: Tahoe next week; Monterey in May, and the Santa Barbara area 2x this summer. It's going to be a joy on the interstate. Things could be worse ...

I was a bit surprised to see that head room in the back is marginal (hadn't paid much attention to the issue). I wouldn't want to sit back there, regardless of legroom (my head brushes the Alcantara), but I'm 6' tall. Anyone under 5'10" would be ok. Wives in the back! Smile

I'm a bit disappointed in the seats. Yes, they adjust 750 ways, but they aren't as tight/structured as those in the M car. My back is my Achielle's heel. Still, it's a minor nit, and it's early days; I could change my mind.

iDrive 5.0 is an improvement over my wife's 2016 version. I don't have the touchscreen, but don't like 'em anyway. The new 5er has iDrive 6.0.

I've been in an SUV for 20 years, and it's nice to be in a proper sedan ...

Congratulations on your new purchase. Just to let you know that as far as the forums are concerned, your purchase did not happened, no pictures, means it did not happened
We need a lots of exterior and interior shots to believe anything you say